Winter Olympics cross-country skiing men's doubles chase Hebei Liu Rongsheng set a Chinese athlete's best result

Liu Rongsheng, a Hebei athlete who debuted on the stage of the Winter Olympics, ranked 38th in the men's double pursuit (15 km traditional technology + 15 km free technology) of cross-country skiing at the Beijing Winter Olympics held this afternoon, ranking 38th with a time of 1 hour, 24 minutes and 59.6 seconds, creating the best result in the history of the Chinese Winter Olympics. Another player from Hebei, Chen Degen, also participated in the competition.

Liu Rongsheng won the game. (Image courtesy of Visual China)

The Chinese cross-country skiing team achieved full participation in this competition, and a total of 4 male athletes, Liu Rongsheng, Chen Degen, Shang Jincai and Hades Badri Khan, qualified for the Winter Olympics. After the start of the race, in the first 15 kilometers of traditional technical sliding stage, Shang Jincai and Liu Rongsheng played their own strength and ranked 31st and 33rd.

After entering the free technical sliding, the physical consumption of the four players of the Chinese team was too large, although they struggled hard, but there was still a certain gap between their own strength and the world's strong players. At the end of the competition, among all 70 participants, Liu Rongsheng finished 38th, creating the best result of a mainland athlete in the Winter Olympics.

Another Hebei player, Chen Degen, was snared in the competition and ended the race early. Next, Liu Rongsheng and Chen Degen will also participate in cross-country skiing men's individual short distance free technique, men's 15 km traditional technology and other competitions.

Liu Rongsheng, born in September 2001, switched from middle-distance running to cross-country skiing through cross-sports selection and was selected as a cross-country ski cross-country training team for cross-country skiing in 2019. The main event is cross-country skiing 15, 30 km medium and long distance skiing. Liu Rongsheng improved quickly after the transfer, and won the second place in the men's 15 km traditional technique, 15 km comprehensive ability, men's medium and long distance individual all-around, 4× 10 km team relay at the 2020-2021 National Cross-Country Skiing Championships. At the Beijing Winter Olympics, the Chinese cross-country skiing men's group won 6 places, and Liu Rongsheng previously reached the A standard of cross-country skiing at the Winter Olympics with 59.37 long-distance points, and was finally selected into the list of Chinese sports delegations.

Chen Degen was born in May 2001, and his main sport is cross-country skiing, 50 km long distance skiing.

Cross-country skiing is a sport that uses basic techniques such as mountaineering, downhilling, turning, and sliding to glide through the snowy terrain of the hills with the help of ski equipment. Cross-country skiing competition routes are divided into uphill, downhill and flat, each accounting for about one-third of the whole process. Cross-country skiing men's double chases are two skiing moves that need to be completed in the competition – traditional techniques and free techniques. After the start, the competitors first use the traditional technique to skate 15 kilometers, then switch to freestyle skis, and then use the free technology to skate 15 kilometers, and the one with less time wins. Among them, the traditional competition, the venue needs to pre-press the special snow trough, during the competition, the athletes will put the snowboard on their feet in the snow trough, can only use the pole to push and swing forward and backward with the legs, and do not allow pedaling and other actions. Freestyle technology, on the other hand, does not have any restrictions on sliding. In the mid-way board change area, athletes need to change their traditional equipment to freestyle equipment, at which time the timer will not stop timing. Therefore, the double chase event not only challenges the physical fitness of the players, but also tests the balanced strength of the two techniques of the players.

Reporter: Song Yunjie

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Organizer: Hebei Provincial Sports Bureau

Producer: Guo Lijun

Editor's proofreading: He Wanxuan